


Sense Memory

by lucymonster



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Dream Sex, F/M, Force Ghost(s), Grief/Mourning, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:46:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22338751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucymonster/pseuds/lucymonster
Summary: Rey looks for Ben's ghost in all the wrong places.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 16
Kudos: 29





	Sense Memory

Rey sees flickers of movement from the corners of her eyes. Shadows dance in her room at night. Faces fade and warp as they pass her in the corridors. Sometimes she looks at her friends and it’s like looking through a telescope from far away. She hardly knows them.

Ajan Kloss empties as soldiers leave to start their post-war lives, taking their stories to share with the galaxy. Rey hears whispers of her own deeds filtered through layers of idealised awe. She hears about her final fight with Palpatine as though the speakers were there with her in the citadel, as though they saw the Force lightning and heard the Emperor’s dying scream. She has tried to tell them that she wasn’t alone in that final hour, but no one listens. Truth complicates the narrative. No one wants to talk about redemption in their moment of triumph. No one wants to see or hear about the bloodstained man who smiled as he poured out the last of his strength so Rey could live.

No one except her. Every day she strains her ears and eyes, waiting for the blue glow or the murmur of his voice. For a glimpse of the beaky nose that bumped hers when they kissed or the dark, shaggy hair she never got a chance to run her hands through. Ben Solo is one with the Force. That means he can come back, if he wants to. Rey’s grief is a bleeding gut wound and she needs him to come back.

But all she sees are shadows. All she hears is silence.

* * *

Sometimes, flashes of another life leak into her dreams. Rey hears explosions and screams of terror, smells smoke and blood and the stench of bodies decaying in a pile. Their liquefied insides splatter her boots as she tramps across battlefields in strides far too big for her. She brims with purpose, with rage, with confusion.

Other times she dreams a quiet room with a single cot bed and a carpeted floor. There’s a toy starfighter on the windowsill. Someone outside in the main house is cooking something that smells sweet and wonderful, and a warm voice calls out, ‘Ben! Time for breakfast!’ She wants to live in that dream forever, but when her small hand reaches out to open the bedroom door, the scene dissolves and she’s alone in a dark First Order corridor watching a servant droid open a ration pack for her.

The rations taste not unlike the greyish portions that made up most of her diet on Jakku. 

One night, Rey dreams her first meeting with Kylo Ren from the wrong side. Through the slit of a helmet visor she sees a scavenger girl, ragged and scared, and her murderous concentration is cut through with a pang of emotion her dream self can’t identify. She feels the limp weight of her body scooped up in a bridal hold, smells fear sweat and the distant acrid tang of the castle burning. Then the dream dissolves again and she’s back on Exegol, looking into her own smiling face and aching all over with relief and joy.

And then it’s gone. Rey wakes to the sharp taste of salt tears tracking down her cheeks.

* * *

‘Be with me,’ she begs the universe, eyes clenched shut, knuckles white as she grips the Force with both hands like a weapon hilt. ‘Be with me. Be with me.’

Still nothing. No blue glow. No reassuring voice.

Her friends are starting to talk about leaving, too. ‘The job’s done,’ Finn says. ‘The fight’s over. There’s a whole galaxy out there for us to enjoy. Why stick around here?’

‘I’ve got family on Yavin 4,’ says Poe. ‘They’d be happy to put us all up for a while. War heroes, and all.’

‘I have something I need to do first,’ Rey tells them. It’s not a lie. There’s something missing from her life, and there has to be a way to make it right – she just doesn’t know how.

* * *

More dreams. These ones belong to her, Rey knows, because she’s dreamt them before: soft skin, hard breathing, the slick ache of two bodies merging into one. Her desire is a sharp-edged thing, cutting her mind to ribbons as heat drips like blood down every nerve. 

She’s a mess when she wakes, squirming under the weight of emotion larger than anything her body knows how to hold. Longing. Frustration. Determination. _See me,_ the shadows in Rey’s mind whisper. _Can’t you see? I never left. I never will. I’m right here._

The room is empty. Rey sees nothing, hears nothing – but she feels. Oh, she feels. The pressure builds from deep inside her. Her lips tingle with a kiss she can’t taste. Her ears echo with laboured breaths she can’t hear. She’s alone in her bed, touching herself to a dream of a ghost whose every wisp of substance is focused on the sole, overwhelming task of making his presence felt.

She comes with a spasm that’s almost pain, rocking in her own hand, whimpering into nothingness. There’s no one to hold her as she comes down. No one to stroke the sweaty hair out of her face. No voice to croon sweet nothings in her ear, no scent of skin, no pleasure-slackened face to smile at.

Just her.

But Rey is made of more than just herself, now, isn’t she? She’s been looking for him everywhere but where he lives: inside her spirit, entwined with her life force, the other half of what makes her whole.

She tastes salt again. More tears. No hand comes to brush them away. But if she closes her eyes, if she reaches inside, she can feel the soft, sympathetic glow of another soul who wanted her happiness more than he wanted his own life. It’s not the blue light of a Force ghost. It has a warmer colour, a brighter texture, like the burnt orange-yellow of the desert dunes she used to call home.

Rey breathes deeply, feels her lungs expand and deflate in her chest. The tears prickle as they dry on her face. ‘I see you, Ben,’ she tells the empty room. ‘I understand now. And I know what I have to do next.’ On the stand by her bed lie a pair of other blue-glowing mementos that she hasn’t laid to rest yet – she’s been dealing with one loss at a time. And now it’s their turn. It’s time to stop waiting on blue light and embrace something new. ‘Will you come with me?’

No audible voice echoes from the depths of her mind to promise her, _Always._ But she hears it anyway.


End file.
